Winter was the time of no harvest for most people of the North, especially near the Hermes Plateau. The Months of the Demons not only brought endless wind and snow but furthermore brought cold, hunger, and death. However, for “False Leg” White, Winter meant something different. Every winter, the Church’s envoy would come to his door to let him drive several turns to the west border of the kingdom. On the way to the border, he would collect suffering orphans with his carriage and bring them to the old Holy City.
For him, this was a good deal since he would almost earn twenty silver royals for each trip to the border. What was even better was that he could also accumulate merits of doing good work. It was almost the end of this year’s Months of the Demons, so this turn should be the last run of this season.
“Your honor, please go back to the carriage and stay inside. Outside, it will still snow for a long time, so you don’t need to eat the wind and drink the snow every day like I do you aren’t allowed to freeze.”
“This is nothing,” the Church’s messenger contradicted White and took a big gulp out of his jug before continuing, “In the new Holy City it can be much colder than it is here. At the plateau, leather clothes and armor aren’t able to stop the cold. If you are there, the cold will come through every opening and drill into every part of your body. Without the usage of cold pills, no ordinary people can survive at that place.
“What you said should be right,” White nodded, he hadn’t been to the new Holy City, and he also didn’t plan to go there. Since only the cold and the demonic beasts existed there, why should I go there? However, as an experienced coachman, it was easy for him to find another topic to speak about, a subject that would be preferred by the envoy. “Your gloves should be made from the leather of the wolves native to the west border of the Kingdom of Graycastle, right?”
“Oh? You can see that?”
“Hey, my lord, I’ve been doing this work for thirty years,” White proudly said, “first for the baron, then for the countess, and later even for the Wolfsheart Kingdom’s little princess. If it were not for the accident when I broke my legs, maybe I would still be working for the count’s house. They had nothing besides plenty of gold royals and paid excellently for Graycastles’s fur and silverware, jewelry from the Kingdom of Eternal Winter, and the fjord’s handicrafts. They demanded so much that I could never deliver enough.”
“So,” the Ambassador nodded, “this is the origin of your nickname? In what kind of accident were you involved in?”
“Well, it was a refugee riot. The group of thugs didn’t stop for anything as long as they could get something to eat from it,” White disdainfully answered. He spat on the ground, “When they surrounded the carriage, I had no other choice than to urge the horse to run if I wanted to save the countess. But, it got frightened, threw me down, and turned over the carriage.
“So you broke your leg?” the Ambassador curiously asked, “but what happened to the countess?”
“She got away since there were many cushions and thick quilts inside the carriage, so she got some light bruises,” White barked, “She just crawled out of the carriage and left me on the road to die. On my broken leg, I dragged my body home.” He slapped his hand against the brass stick that showed from under his cut-off trousers.” However, the count’s house threw me out on the pretext that I could not drive anymore, those damn aristocrats!”
“What a pity,” the Ambassador paused, “but God did not abandon you, now you are driving for the Church.”
“Yes sir.” Answered White, but inside, he thought, No. If God were merciful, he wouldn’t let me do this. Instead, he would have saved me when I needed him the most.
At this moment, the cry of a young girl could be heard. “We need a little pause.”
Hearing this, White pulled at the reins so that the two horses gradually stopped. At the moment the carriage had stopped, the ambassador jumped down and went to its back. Soon, a whip crack could be heard from behind the carriage.
Poor child, thought White as he sighed, you have to endure it, this is your savior. If it weren’t for the Church’s envoy who always supported me through the winter, I would only be an unattended corpse at the side of the road.
Soon, the ambassador came back, climbed up, and sat beside White and only commanded, “Go.”
“Brace yourselves, I am driving!” shouted White as he shook his reins, removing the carriage. “Are they all from the Wolfsheart Kingdom?”